Viaduct inspires Viadoom tunes

Members of the Rat City Rollergirls flat-track roller derby league skate on the upper deck of the closed Alaskan Way Viaduct on Saturday, October 22, 2011 in downtown Seattle. (Joshua Trujillo / seattlepi.com)

Seattle is a great music city, so it should be no surprise that a few local artists wrote songs inspired by the Alaskan Way Viaduct.

One band has even named itself after the double-decker highway, which is only partially standing now that the state Transportation Department knocked down most of the southernmost mile this week.

When WSDOT announced a contest this month for a lucky winner to have exclusive access to the shutdown viaduct for 30 minutes, 29 local groups submitted entries, many with idea of shooting a music video on the vacant landmark.

Since none of the artists won the contest (the Rat City Rollergirls and Seattle Cossacks were chosen), I was curious about what sort of music we’ll have to remember the viaduct by. I asked WSDOT for a peek at some of the entries.

My favorite was a tribute by The Gnu Deal, a hip-hop duo out of White Center. “As White Center residents, the commute/view on 99 has been a beauty we’ve enjoyed any time we’ve traveled north through downtown,” they wrote in their contest entry.

They captured it pretty well with these lyrics:

On the way home, it’s a breathtaking drive-by
Feeling even more blessed you didn’t take I-5.
The tie-dye sunset is worth the wait.
You forget it all could end if the earth shakes.

I spoke by email to Gnu Deal member Eric Graham, known as AMFM, about what the group plans for the song.

“We had talked about doing a viaduct tribute track for a while, being as the dilemma surrounding it really serves as a cool metaphor for the music scene,” he said (listen to the song to hear what he means). “The contest just pushed us over the edge to do it, and in writing it we both realized how much the viaduct meant to us in a literal sense. You could say the contest was the reason, but we’re so stoked about the track that it’s going on our upcoming LP.”

“If I could use the Alaskan Way Viaduct for thirty minutes I would have a concert/shoot a video with my band that is named in its honor,” wrote Stuart Cornutt, the band’s guitarist and vocalist. “After six of us took a road trip (2003) and visited 35 states playing music as we went, we decided the most awesome drive in all of America is over the Alaskan Way Viaduct on a sunny evening in our own hometown; hence the name.”